In Sickness, in Health ... and in Jail

by Mel Jacob

  He just sat there looking at me, as did the other patrons. Then as though he was the one parenting me, he said, ‘Have you had your brain medicine today, Mum?’

  SEVENTEEN

  Mannus Correctional Centre

  4 March 2013

  Beauty,

  On the outside I was just Mr Average. Average job, average house, average marks in school. In Mannus, I am Stephen Freaking Hawking.

  I’m in the unit they call The Bronx (roughest) but small fry compared to MRRC. Mainly drug related—possession, sales, petty crime to buy drugs (called earning). Smugglers are called Border Security (like the reality show).

  In a 2 out with a guy named Jamie. Friendly, Indigenous, unintentionally funny and added bonus—not a bikie (I checked).

  Sad to hear Jamie’s life on the outside worse than prison. No real parenting, schooling. Eleven?? siblings, most of them have been inside. He’s disappointed he didn’t get a longer sentence so he can be in prison for winter. Told me he’s had thirteen ‘brushes with the law’.

  Me: Have you been arrested thirteen times?

  Jamie: (laughing his head off) No, bras, I’ve been in prison thirteen times. Been arrested heaps of times.

  Me: Heaps? Like how many? Fifteen, twenty?

  Jamie: (laughing) No bras, hundreds, hundreds.

  Me: What did you do?

  Jamie: Stole bacon from the supermarket, a lot of bacon.

  Me: Were you hungry?

  Jamie: No, I’m saving for a car, bras.

  Jamie can’t read either and Nick and Lexie know more about the world than he does.

  After noticing me sleeping sun-up to sundown.

  Jamie: If you keep sleepin’ this much, bras, then you are going to sleep through . . . (extra long pause) . . . for a long time in your sentence.

  Me: Half of my sentence.

  Jamie: How’d you work that out?

  Me: Because of the hours (he looks confused) 6 to 6 is twelve hours, half of 24 . . . And there are 24 hours in a day . . .

  Jamie: Did you count them?

  Me: No, someone else did.

  Jamie: (rocking head in awe) Wow, bras, you are the smartest person I have ever met!

  On the other hand, he knows things I don’t.

  Jamie: (after inviting him to a BBQ at our place once we’re out) Bras, you don’t want to invite me over for some grub.

  Me: Why not?

  Jamie: You don’t have any Koori friends, do ya?

  Me: Actually, no, I don’t.

  Jamie: And you don’t have any crim friends either, do ya?

  Me: No.

  Jamie: Get yaself comfortable, it’s time for me to teach you something. You invite me for some tucker and I come over with a coupla mates. We have some grub, some drinks and it’s late, you ask me to stay the night and I accept. The next day we eat and drink some more, and some more mates arrive to pick me up and they stay for some drinks, and then we stay the next night and the next, until finally you kick us out of the house, and we’ll get a 40-gallon drum and have a corroboree out on the front lawn, burn all the grass. Your neighbours are gunna complain about the noise and the smoke, so you call police, and get this: they can’t do a bloody thing because you invited us.

  Me: So, how do I get in touch with you?

  Jamie: Remember that small town I told you I’m from? Go to the police station and they’ll know exactly where I am.

  Questions he has asked me in total seriousness:

  Is Back to the Future a documentary?

  What’s all the fuss about recycling, bras? When this planet fails we’re going to live on Mars (said trip will be as long as drive to Queensland).

  Meant to be rehabilitated but prison is like apprenticeship in crime. So far I have learned how to:

  Find a drug supplier

  Sell drugs

  Set up a drug mule

  Steal a car

  Cheat on other women

  Do an insurance job

  Defraud the government

  My job here at Mannus is mowing the lawns. Ironic, I know! Raking in the big bucks now—$25 per week.

  Me: Mowing’s not that hard; when I get out, I might buy a mower.

  Inmate: No one buys lawn mowers; you just ‘borrow’ them.

  Me: I don’t think it’s unusual to buy lawn mowers.

  Inmate: You probably buy toilet paper and newspapers too, ya mug.

  Had a few offers to do insurance jobs. Inmate (Shane Malarkey) heard me mouthing off about a business competitor.

  Malarkey: It’s what I was born do. Teach people lessons. Bit of kero, packet of matches and I’ll burn it to the ground.

  Me: No, no, I do not want you to do that. I’m not telling you to do that.

  Malarkey: But you said you wished they weren’t around.

  Me: I was angry. I was just letting off some steam.

  Malarkey: Let me know if you change your mind, it’s what I do and if I get effing caught, only get six months.

  It’s calmer here than MRRC and so good to be able to see trees/ nature. Most inmates are low risk (charges wise) or are at the end of their sentence. Some Spinners here, though. Turbo (nickname) moves around the yard doing sound effects and mimes driving a car. Always talking about the latest and greatest car models. XV72??? which means nothing to me. Yesterday Turbo tried to talk to me in the yard. Gestured that I couldn’t hear him. He stopped suddenly and wound down imaginary window (old style).

  Me: You’ll cause an accident stopping suddenly like that, Turbo. Thought you had a new car?

  Turbo then presses a button, which doesn’t look as effective (mime-wise). Everyone jokes that one day we’re going to see him wrapped around a pole.

  Breakfast is jail-issue rice bubbles, or rice loops or Weetbix. Satchel arrives with dinner. (Get tea and coffee. Give to other inmates as gift.)

  Lunch served between 10 to 11am (best meal of the day, wraps or samosas).

  Dinner at 3pm. (Miss dinner with you and the kids more than anything.)

  Food looks and tastes the same for each meal. Big disappointment when recognisable. #1 worst meal Five beans (as sounds) #2 Cold onion and cabbage.

  One apple a day, sometimes a pear. Don’t allow other fruits, as inmates can make alcohol. Nothing fresh apart from apples/ pears. May be in danger of scurvy.

  Locked in every night at 5pm. You would love it in here (apart from the sexism, criminals and food, ha-ha). All the time in the world to read and write.

  Miss reading to the kids. Remember I made videos of me reading stories to the kids. Saved on desktop under Bedtime stories.

  I love you,

  Paddy

  P.S. Please send more pictures of the kids (only postcard size 6×4 allowed).

  P.P.S. So sad, a guy named Roger (only normal guy (relatively speaking!!!) in Bronx) hasn’t had a visitor the whole time. Can you ask if Fiona or Cathy can book in to see him?

  P.P.P.S. Another inmate’s daughter is v. sick (leaking bowel?). Can you call Graham to see if he can help?

  EIGHTEEN

  It was dark when I pulled into the Club Motel in Tumbarumba, a small town on the western slopes of the Snowy Mountains. Population 1500. According to the map, the trip was 513 kilometres—or five hours and four minutes by car. But the map didn’t account for repeated toilet and/or vomiting stops, a dinner break, and other interruptions, like searching for the SpongeBob DVD that had vanished in the time it took me to drive from the outskirts of Sydney into the dry, barren landscape of south-west New South Wales.

  ‘Blink and you’ll miss it,’ is how my father would have described Tumbarumba. It’s one of those small, sleepy towns, with one main street that doglegs around a corner to where our motel was located. It was not dissimilar to the town I had grown up in, though much smaller. The kind where everyone knew each other, and good old-fashioned trust and goodwill still existed. When I made the motel booking the week before, I had explained that I wouldn’t be arriving until dark. Bill, the salt-of-the-earth propri
etor, said, ‘I’ll leave the lights on and the key in the door. Fix me up when you see me.’

  Sure enough, the lights were on and the key was in the lock of Room 10. I unloaded the car, and then, one by one, carried the sleeping kids and all our things into the room. When I had unpacked everything, I collapsed into the single bed furthest from the window and thought about all the food preparation I had to do the following morning. Mannus, unlike MRRC, allowed visitors to bring food. There was a long list of food that wasn’t allowed—mainly, biscuits, cakes and sugar. All food had to be chopped and stored in clear plastic containers, and metal cutlery was also prohibited. Paddy’s family had made the trip the week before, and told me that most people carried things into the prison in a clear 20-litre storage tub.

  As I lay there, a yellow-tinged light flooded the room, momentarily silhouetting the children’s faces. They looked so angelic when they were asleep and even more so bathed in the glow of headlights. I always felt that whatever had occurred during the day, I could forgive anything when I saw their sleeping faces. They looked like perfectly formed cherubs, I thought, and my worries about the visit simply melted away.

  ‘They’ve got ice-cube trays. And orange juice,’ Nick said, when he woke me early the next morning.

  ‘And there’s a basket of little soaps and shampoos. What does this say?’ Lexie asked, plonking her collection on the bed in front of me.

  ‘“Country Life Conditioner. For smooth, shiny hair”.’

  ‘And this one?’

  ‘“Country Life Soap”,’ I said, yawning. ‘You can have them.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, jumping up and down. ‘But isn’t that stealing?’

  ‘No, they’re complimentary. Free.’ I sat up.

  ‘This is the best motel ever!’

  I wouldn’t have described it that way. It was in excellent condition, and everything was clean and well presented, but mostly it was nondescript. Apart from some mock-colonial features and the exposed brick wall, it could have been any of thousands of motels anywhere in Australia. But the kids loved it. They jumped around all morning, singing the praises of the wall-mounted television, and the miniature cereal boxes. I certainly couldn’t accuse them of being ungrateful.

  In the car park directly outside the door, it didn’t escape Bill’s attention that I, like many other patrons, was loading a plastic tub into the car. I had spent the morning chopping fruit and salad, and packing everything except a partridge in a pear tree into the tub.

  ‘Made it here all right, then?’ Bill asked and I told him I had. ‘Make sure you take jackets out there today. It’s only ten k’s outta town but it gets a breeze up, being a plain.’ It was his way of saying he knew where we were headed and it was fine by him. I appreciated it.

  Having been treated with such kindness and respect at the motel, it caught me completely by surprise when, ten minutes later, we stood in front of a curt, portly female corrections officer.

  ‘Do you have any mobile phones, recording devices, alcohol, prohibited weapons, illegal drugs, prescription medication or paper money?’ she asked, looking me up and down, and then settling on an expression suggesting she’d recently had colorectal surgery.

  ‘No,’ I said, trying to make my response as brief and as bland as possible.

  ‘Do you have any confectionery, sugar, chilli, seafood, nuts, cakes, sweet biscuits, muffins, or any other homemade baked goods, or screw-top bottles of any kind?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. And with that, the CO lifted the lid of the tub and started removing items. I knew from Patrick’s sisters that this was simply part of the visiting procedure and I was confident I hadn’t packed anything that was restricted.

  ‘Oh, fancy. Like the brand names, do we?’ she said, in a way that can only be described as catty.

  I was at a loss as to what I had done to antagonise this woman. I had checked the website, and called the prison several times about requirements, and, as far as I could tell, I was meeting them. I thought back over the things I’d been told and read: no open-toed shoes; no short or revealing clothing (not in the last fifteen years); my mobile phone was under the front seat of the car; prescription medication was at the motel. I couldn’t think of anything . . .

  ‘Do you think you’ll have enough food?’ she scoffed. ‘Anyone’d think you’re catering for all the blokes.’

  I looked down at my feet to try to focus on something that wouldn’t lead to my own prison sentence. She was right. But the visit was until three o’clock, which was six and a half hours! That is an enormous amount of time to amuse and feed four people, all of whom eat different things.

  Paddy had also asked me to bring the local newspapers, and paper for him to write down answers to my questions about the business, and then there were the games for the kids. It’d been like Tetris trying to fit everything into the tub. Lexie and Nick carried their own jackets and colouring pencils.

  ‘Can’t take these in,’ she said, holding up a clear packet of savoury crackers.

  ‘I called during the week to ask about the food and they told me savoury biscuits are allowed.’

  ‘No, they’ll have to go in the locker,’ she said. ‘And you’ve got too many games. We’ve got things for kids in the visiting room,’ she snapped, and from where I stood, I could see a colourful hand-painted mural advertising ‘Kids’ Corner’.

  I packed the permitted items back in the tub, and moved over to the counter to complete the visitor’s information sheet, which required me to list my address, driver’s licence number and car registration, and the person responsible for supervising the children. ‘Jacobs,’ was called over the loudspeaker. As I was doing this, a woman carrying a single transparent plastic bag entered reception.

  ‘Now, here’s a woman who knows how to pack,’ the CO said. And I placed my handbag, along with the board games and crackers, in the locker with as much contempt as I could rally.

  There were no retina scans or security wands at Mannus, and at first we didn’t realise that. We just stood in the doorway until a male CO said, ‘You can go in.’ So then we simply walked in and sat down at a table close to Kids’ Corner. The aspect was beautiful. The back windows looked out onto a small park-like area of trees and picnic tables, and in the middle of the yard was a sprawling, leafy tree, like something straight out of the pages of a storybook.

  ‘Daddy!’ the kids chorused, running up to meet Paddy. It had been weeks since we’d seen him. It had taken eight days for him to arrive at Mannus via the milk run with all the drop-offs and pickups and he had spent nights at Bathurst and Junee Correctional Centres. On his first weekend there, the kids didn’t want to miss a friend’s birthday party.

  ‘You look nice,’ he said, kissing me on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks. You too,’ I lied. Patrick was wearing a forest-green tracksuit, the uniform of inmates incarcerated in New South Wales. It was elasticised and tapered at the ankle, the style favoured by retirees and dowdy mothers, and very unflattering. As I spoke, I became aware of my body becoming tense. I had made the booking, and driven all those miles and signed the visitor’s sheet, but seeing him in his prison-issue clothes I experienced the shock of it all over again.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, good,’ I said, but I wasn’t—I was bewildered.

  ‘Come and play,’ Lexie moaned, pulling on Paddy’s arm as he wolfed down a large bowl of muesli, fruit and yoghurt.

  ‘Why don’t you play with some of the toys?’ I suggested, directing her and Nick to Kids’ Corner. They returned approximately thirty seconds later. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything’s broken,’ Nick said.

  Kids’ Corner was Blanche Dubois. From a distance, under the coloured lights and paper lanterns, everything looked new and shiny and full of promise. Up close you could see everything for what it really was; old and tattered and broken. The chalkboard had no chalk. The DVD player and TV had no visible cords to be plugged in. Only three of the to
ys (appropriate for a toddler) were in reasonable condition. All the books had ripped covers and torn pages. Kneeling down with the kids, I noticed a painted wall mural of library books. The mural’s artist had written on the spines: The Bill, The Great Escape, Escape from Alcatraz, The Green Mile, Midnight Express and other prison-related titles. At least someone had a sense of humour.

  ‘Let’s go outside,’ I suggested. To the right was a paddock, and then a cluster of sheds, small brick buildings and demountables. And for miles and miles beyond that, there were grassy acres of farmland. I was soaking in the beauty of the view Patrick had described to me in his letters, when he walked up, held my hand and leaned into me. At once, the kids were at our side.

  ‘Want to wrestle, Dad?’ Nick asked.

  ‘I want to spend time with Dad,’ Lexie whined.

  ‘I don’t think the guards’d be cool with that, mate,’ Patrick answered, to Nick’s enormous disappointment.

  ‘Why don’t you have a go on the slippery dip?’

  We took refuge on a bench under the sprawling tree and watched Nick and Lexie on the playground equipment. They slid down the slide and balanced on the climbing poles, all the while saying, ‘Look, Dad, look at this’, and ‘Did you see that, Dad?’

  ‘What sort of tree is this?’ I asked Paddy, pointing up to the sinuous branches.

  ‘Oak,’ he said, producing a perfectly formed acorn from his pocket. It was beautiful.

  ‘There’s nothing to do,’ complained Nick, jumping off the equipment.

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Paddy asked, and walked over to stand at one end of a cement rectangle. Nick and Lexie followed. He held the acorn in his hand, and hurled it down the impromptu pitch in a concentrated underarm throw. ‘Reckon you can beat that?’

  ‘It’s my turn, my turn,’ each of them insisted. They both took turns throwing the acorn, marking the spot where it landed by scratching the cement with a small stone. Soon, another group of kids joined in. After they had finished a round, Lexie stood open-mouthed, hands on hips, listening to Nick talk to a boy of a similar age. Then she marched over to us.